For clarity’s sake, all of the things I say about Brett Haley in the intro to my review of his latest, Hearts Beat Loud, is absolutely true: I’ve never spoken to him one on one, but I have seen him speak, twice, two years in a row, at Independent Film Festival Boston, where in both appearances he … Continue reading →
Anytime a director takes a really worn-out formula or structure and freshens it up is a good time (more often than not). So Lowlife, a movie where a man in a luchador mask roughs people up for a sex trafficking, organ snatching sicko, is my kind of a thing, a clear descendant of the grimy, violent … Continue reading →
If you don’t listen closely enough, you might miss the quiet explanation for Pet Names‘ title, but that’s okay: You’re almost guaranteed to catch it. Pet Names is a tiny movie about tiny problems, but it’s beautifully made and completely engrossing; I can’t imagine anyone with a taste for this kind of cinema, character-driven, relationship-driven, unfussed and … Continue reading →
(What do any of these movies have in common with each other? Little and less, but maybe you can draw some links from one to the other to the third, especially between the first and the last in the round-up. Or maybe not. There’s not much that gooey indie dramedies, harsh crime stories, and acid-trip … Continue reading →
And here I go, festing yet again! This time I’m remotely reviewing a title that played at this year’s Berlinale (also known as the Berlin International Film Festival), Weirdos, directed by Bruce McDonald, who is probably best liked for his 2009 horror film Pontypool. Weirdos isn’t Pontypool by a damn sight, either in terms of content or in … Continue reading →
I’ve not yet stumbled upon a review of Moonlight that has found a way to associate the film’s message with the central philosophies of the Black Lives Matter movement, mostly because that movement is not germane to the film’s messages and because, I suspect, any white author writing about Barry Jenkins’ extraordinary second feature is smart … Continue reading →
Proof that Sarah Paulson is the best: She coaxes a great performance out of Mark Duplass in Blue Jay, this wonderful, itty bitty widdle indie moobie that you can rent or buy in iTunes. I think you should! I obviously liked it, judging by the review I wrote for Paste Magazine, and you know that that’s … Continue reading →
I can picture a cut of Goat that leaves out the extraneous stuff, the stuff that has net zero impact on the plot, and I can also picture that cut of Goat being much, much better than the cut we got. Oh well. The cut we got is still pretty solid, excess material aside. Goat, by the way, … Continue reading →
Elizabeth Wood’s White Girl is not a movie for the prude or the faint of heart. You can tell that by looking at its poster, which features the white girl of the title having sex with her drug dealing boyfriend. (Spoiler alert!) There’s more where that came from (zing!), though, lots more, and much of it … Continue reading →
I didn’t put Ira Sachs’ Little Men on my top ten of the year thus far list, but if I’d revisited it before seeing Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice, it might have ended up at least in the ten slot, and possibly higher. It’s one of the films in 2016 that comes as close to perfect as possible, … Continue reading →
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